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By Mike Kaszuba and Matt Ehling Environmentalists and mining officials have long debated how ambitious copper-sulfide mining proposals might impact the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and other sensitive land parcels in northern Minnesota. But hundreds of documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act litigation by Public Record Media, a non-profit based in Saint […]

By Mike Kaszuba When the Super Bowl was held in Minneapolis two years ago, federal aviation officials had a unique partner to make sure private planes bringing in fans avoided a logjam at Twin Cities airports – the National Football League. The arrangement allowed for the use of an NFL reservation system as the Federal […]

By Mike Kaszuba As the plan to build a Major League Soccer stadium in Saint Paul gained momentum in 2015, a potential problem stood in the way: Would the federal government let a sports stadium be built on property that had been purchased primarily with federal transit dollars? And would it matter that the money […]

By Mike Kaszuba Twice during the past two years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has given permission to a notable defense contractor to help conduct an unusual mission: Fly a sophisticated high-altitude balloon over a six-state area – including southern Minnesota – to help the government deter drug trafficking and homeland security threats. But in early […]

By Mike Kaszuba The subject of the meeting was cryptic — “Containing High-Profile Attempts to Influence: Tactics, Response, and Lessons Learned.” The location was a facility in suburban Minneapolis operated by Cargill, the meeting host and the largest privately-held company in the United States. And the meeting’s coordinator was the local office of the Federal Bureau […]

By Matt Ehling and Mike Kaszuba A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit initiated by non-profit organization Public Record Media (PRM) has uncovered records showing that in early 2017, Department of Justice (DOJ) officials circulated a memo outlining proposed changes to the Espionage Act – a World War I-era statute that has been used to […]

By Mike Kaszuba Nearly three months before most Minnesotans knew that Google was interested in building a large data center in Sherburne County, local officials were already putting together a public subsidy package for the multi-billion-dollar company. New documents obtained by Saint Paul-based non-profit Public Record Media (PRM) show that the broad outlines of an […]